Ok folks! I got my new KIN today. I've only had it a few hours and wanted to give my impression(s). Like most everyone else I've read a lot of bad things about the KIN but I wanted (needed) to see for myself. On paper it just looked too good.
My old phone was the Voyager. Look it up. It's a lot like the enV Touch. Before that I had a Samsung Omnia and before that an enV (1). And before that... I don't even remember.
So, as a reference to my opinion, for anyone who has any experience with any of the phones I listed:
1) the Voyager was a good phone. Kind of big. Touch screen was not the best. Nowhere near iPod/iPhone quality. But overall I was satisfied with the phone.
2) Samsung Omnia. {word filter avoidance}
! Worst phone ever produced! This phone was so bad I reactivated my old phone after 7 days of really trying to learn it and like it. Forget about it or anything else with Windows Phone on it.
3) enV was good. It was pretty new and different then. I liked it a lot.
Ok. So, now to the KIN: first impression: relieved! this is a really cool phone. You have to see it not as a smart phone but as a feature phone. As a smart phone it will strike you as limited. As a feature phone it is the coolest phone I've ever seen. It does everything my old phone does and does it easily. So, my recommendation is if you're wavering, order it.
Now to some specifics:
Touch screen: if you've ever used a Touch iPod or iPhone or an Android, it's just like that. It is the first thing that hit me and it's worth the price of admission alone. After using resistive capacitive phones this thing will change the way you view touch screens.
Contacts list: get over it! Verizon screwed up on this (big time!!) but forget about it! Sit down with a cold one and enter in your contacts. PITA but worth having this phone for.
Messaging: Hmmm... it's more like instant messaging than text messaging. Each person is like a long running conversation. When you text, you are continuing a conversation. So you see all the texts you exchanged with that person. Of course, just like Instant Messaging, when you delete you delete the whole conversation. Is that a big deal? Not for me. I liked being able to save old text messages but, come on! It's not that big of a deal. I'll adapt. And no, you can't forward. I've forwarded maybe 10 messages in my life. So, again, not a great loss for me. And you can't get the little picture emoticons that normal feature phones do. But it's kind of like texting someone on AT&T from a Verizon phone.
IN EXCHANGE: it has a really (REALLY) neat feature that pops up a little balloon in whatever you're doing with any incoming texts. You can go to texting or ignore it. I LOVE it. It sounds less cool than it is. I would easily trade any lost feature for it. And it has a text emoticon button. This is too cool. You're texting, you hit the button, you get a little menu of emoticons, hit one and go back to texting.
Internet: This is it! Works awesome! Not everything but I'm amazed at how much DOES work. You can surf the internet on your cellphone WITHOUT a data plan! Forget about all the things it can't do. It can do plenty. Don't forget, this isn't a smart phone. It's (just) a feature phone. And seen from that prospective, well, show me another feature phone that can surf the net for free!
I synced a bunch of albums to the Zune player. It works great and picks up the cover art to boot! BTW the radio works fantastic! And a 3.5mm headphone jack. Too cool!
I don't plug products very often but I've read a lot of bad things about this phone. While they may all be true to a degree, they are, imo, WAY over blown. This is a cool phone and I'm keeping it!
